On the 15th of February, having read Virginia López’s article’s ‘Venezuelan violence could leave Maduro stronger’, I was utterly confused by her analysis. What happened on the 12th of February in Caracas, why, what are the consequences? I could not answer these questions. The problem with this apparently balanced account of Venezuelan politics is that it’s in fact biased.

What happened on the 12th of February? Leopoldo Lopez, opposition leader of the hard line party Popular Will, called for a national protest under the banner The Exit. He said he hoped to draw millions of protesters to oust Maduro by legal means. 10000 people - not the millions Lopez had hoped for - took to the streets to protest against the incarceration of opposition students, record inflation (56%), insecurity and food shortages. After the rally, some protesters stayed on and clashed with the police. AFP journalists saw armed men on motorbikes fire shot at the crowds.

Two student protesters, Bassil Alejandro Dacosta and Neyder Arellano Sierra, were shot to death. The third victim was Juan Montoya, a police officer, member of the collectivo 23 de Enero, West Caracas. Community organisers and vigilantes, collectivos are self-proclaimed defenders of the Chavez revolution. The government blamed Montoya’s killing on opposition ‘fascists’. Who killed Montoya, however, is far from clear.

López devotes two thirds of her piece to the collectivos. She describes them as parallel pro-government militia, used by Maduro to intimidate the opposition. Thousands of Venezuelans report the collectivos daily acts of intimidation on Twitter. She quotes a Merida blogger @Eurolobo: ‘I saw how the police stood aside to let the collectivos control the city. It is a method frequently used by this government to intimidate opponents. They operate almost in parallel to the police’.

Did López bother to reach the government for comment? She does not mention it. Yet it’s standard practice in journalism to contact a government spokesperson, if only to write ‘so and so declined to comment’. That’s called checking different sources, or covering your ass. It’s what Guardian journalists do when they expose the British government’s shortcomings. So why apply different standards of journalism to Venezuela? Venezuela is not North Korea. At least not yet.

Virginia López does not shed any light into the opposition tactics. She does not provide any background on Leopoldo Lopez, ex mayor of wealthy Eastern Caracas district Chacao. Lopez comes from a very rich family. He played a key role in the 2002 failed coup against Chávez. He co-funded with former Presidential candidate Henrique Capriles the right wing party Primero Justicia. He was banned from public office on charges of corruption by the courts. Lopez wants to replace Capriles as the leader of Democratic Unity (MUD) alliance.

Fact is, Capriles is on his way out: he has lost his grip on the MUD, the fragmented opposition alliance. Capriles had refused to endorse the protests on the 12th of February, fearing that they might degenerate into violent clashes. Lopez is even more right wing than Capriles. This is a problem for moderate opposition sympathisers. Maduro has accused Lopez of plotting a coup with the help of former Columbian President Álvaro Uribe. Maduro issued a warrant to arrest Lopez. Of course, these claims are exaggerated and distorted. But they should be at least checked.

At the end of her piece, Virginia López quotes Corrales, ‘The protests turned Chavistas all the more entrenched to defend this government at all costs, and this is good news for Maduro.’

One question springs to mind: who is Corrales? López does not say. In truth, in an online, shorter version of the piece published on the 14th of February, she writes that Corrales is an associate professor at Amherst College and a specialist of Venezuelan politics. Javier Corrales is the co-author - with Michael Penfold-Ferrera - of the ‘Dragon in the Tropics’, a well-documented, critical account of chavismo. Javier Corrales has become the official US expert on Venezuela.

When Professor Corrales gave a talk on Venezuela at Brookings in Spring 2011, he mentioned that some US officials were getting increasingly impatient with Chávez. Strangely, nobody in the audience asked him any questions. In August 2013, commenting on the April 2013 Presidential elections, Corrales deplored that Maduro did not sit down with the opposition to forge a pact for democracy. This would have been the proper thing to do, he said, given the serious allegations of fraud in the elections. Perhaps Corrales might have wanted to suggest the same thing to US Republicans in 2000? If you recall, there were serious serious allegations of fraud, not least in Florida, where younger brother of GW Bush, Jebb, happened to be governor.

Back to Venezuela, allegations of fraud in April 2013 have not been proved. Corrales deplores that other Latin American countries, notably Brazil, immediately recognised Maduro’s victory against Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader. John Kerry finally admitted the legitimacy of the elections.

Javier Corrales is hardly a politically neutral commentator. But the problem was that the information concerning Professor Corrales did not make it in the print version of the online piece. There could be three reasons for this.

Scenario 1: the copy editor did not bother to ask Ms López who Mr. Corrales was, and why he should be quoted. After all, it would have been Friday afternoon, Valentine’s day. One has more pressing maters to deal with on Valentine’s day than checking a sloppy piece with big holes before sending it to print.
Scenario 2: the copy editor cut Ms López line on Javier Corrales’ expertise to gain printing space. Understandable, given the length of the piece and its utter lack of clarity.
Scenario 3: Ms López was so engrossed in her subject that she did not think it necessary to spell out who her sources were. Her husband, Michael Penfold-Ferrera, is the co-author of The Dragon in the Tropics and a good fried of Javier Corrales.

Whatever the reasons, as a Guardian reader and occasional contributor, I would expect better than this.